faderift | MOD PLOT ↠ BEFORE THE GATES

Entry tags:

MOD PLOT ↠ BEFORE THE GATES | OPEN LOG

WHO: Anyone
WHAT: A race to a Gate, with detours
WHEN: Late August to mid Kingsway
WHERE: Arlathan Forest
NOTES: See also OOC post, puzzle log.

Intel out of Hasmal and the Antivan borderlands suggest the enemy has abruptly changed gears, hurriedly redeploying most of the teams that have been busy combing the southern end of the Hundred Pillars north, to the edge of the Arlathan Forest. The only plausible explanation is that they've got a hot lead on another gate, more urgent than whatever they've been (so far fruitlessly) searching for north of Starkhaven. This provides Riftwatch with an opportunity to finally beat the Venatori to a Gate and prevent them from opening it—but they're going to have to move fast.

Helpfully, previous surveys of the Crossroads located an eluvian only a few hours' walk away that leads into the Arlathan Forest, so the enemy's head start in terms of travel time can be swiftly made up. The fact that the Venatori have brought so many of their search teams up from the south suggests they don't know exactly where in the forest the Gate is, but there's no telling what clues they might be working on and they out-number Riftwatch, so it's all hands on deck to scour the ruins strewn throughout the forest and find it first.

I. HOME BASE

The eluvian Riftwatch is using is located inside an expansive chamber, so cool, dark, and quiet that it might initially be mistaken for a cave. Or not even mistaken, exactly. It is both cavernous and underground. But when torches are held near the cavern walls, they reveal a wall within the wall, smooth dolomite bricks with large, arcing windows that frame nothing but sheets of limestone, both smoothed and in some places receding in rivulets where water has been seeping through for hundreds of years. Young limestone stalactites are beginning to creep in through the windows.

In summary: a room within a cave, scattered with ancient stone benches in various states of crumbling and more recent additions made of wood, cloth, and vine, all partially rotten. One of its two expansive doorways opens on a stone corridor, perfectly straight, between three smaller rooms. The smallest looks like a shrine, walls adorned with a crumbling mosaic of the elven pantheon. Another room was not always a bathroom, but in the past century or two someone has fashioned it into one, harnessing a rivulet that's streaming and seeping from somewhere beyond the cavern walls to build a stone bath reminiscent of a fountain, overflowing into smaller pools before the water is swept out of the room altogether by the stream's disappearance through the wall. The water tastes of limestone, but it's fresh and safe to drink.

This is where Riftwatch sets up its temporary base of operations for the search of the forest. Carting supplies across the Crossroads and replenishing them from time to time is simple enough. Someone even thinks to bring hay to spread beneath the bedrolls in one of the smaller rooms. The central chamber is lit by the glow of the eluvian, torches, and lyrium glowlights, ultimately bright enough to do paperwork. Some people make a routine out of doing their normal ("normal") work here, for the time being, to be on hand if there's an emergency or to save themselves the walk back through the Crossroads between stints in the woods. A map of Arlathan Forest—a bad one, at least at first—is spread over a wooden table that's gone soft and spongy with age and moisture; it wouldn't support a man's weight anymore, but it can hold a map and the markers used to keep track of which areas have been searched, where Corypheus' people have been spotted, and which landmarks seem promising.

The second doorway in the chamber opens to stairs. Stairs down. This structure was once above, not below. But two stories deeper into the earth, the stairs give way to a natural cavern, no sign of elven construction in sight, with a draft that guides visitors through a narrow passage and out into the forest.

II. CITYWIDE GREEN INITIATIVE

Arlathan Forest is not as tropical as the Donarks that Riftwatch found themselves stranded in a few years ago, but it is far enough north to be warm, humid, dense, and deeply green, home to a constant symphony of buzzing and chirping and squeaking and the occasional (hopefully) distant snarl or growl. Of particular note are the presence of alligators, jaguars, and small elephants, along with the usual collection of smaller wildlife and the elusive halla.

Wild as it is, the forest doesn't allow anyone to forget that it was once a city. In the heart of the forest the terrain is cliffy and jagged in a way that suggests that, rather than the city only sinking into the earth, the earth might have risen to meet it halfway: there are towering, sheer-faced rock formations that evoke the image of buildings several stories tall, now encased in stone and plant life. Sometimes a vine-covered fragment of roof- or tower-top emerges from the top of one of these rock formations, or an expanse of brick wall from the sides. They're all in an ancient elven style familiar from, if nothing else, the Crossroads everyone walked through to get here. The lower, marshy land between them–in some places occupied with streams or wider rivers–have occasional patches of tiled stone where roads once ran instead.

There are signs, too, of more recent occupation since the ancient city of Arlathan was swallowed by the earth. Forest-dwellers from within the last age have built walkways and bridges among the cliffs and rock formations that occasionally still hold up. They've left behind tools, collapsing huts, signs of occupation in caves, and occasionally a more recent skeleton or three. And there are rarer signs of the Dalish who still occupy the forest: arrows embedded in tree trunks, statues of wolves or other symbols of the pantheon, a few old abandoned camps, a damaged aravel.

III. MORE MAGIC MORE PROBLEMS

Of course, this is not a normal ancient city swallowed by the earth and left to become a wild forest over the course of more than a thousand years. It's a magical one.

Alongside the bugs and birds and creatures occupying the forest are spirits, in more abundance than most people have ever seen them. There are small swarms of wisps drifting like butterflies around objects of interest to them, and more humanoid, ghostly, temperamental wraiths drifting over marshlands. A very rare wraith will have a voice, a name, and perhaps an errand to ask or a bargain to make. Shades wait in caves, and demons of any kind might be discovered waiting for victims in the nooks and crannies of the woods–but in particular the sylvans for which the forest is known, which any traveler passing nearby is warned to watch for.

Less common are the Forest Guardians. Easily missed among the rocky, viney landscape until they begin to move, they're massive constructions of wood and stone, tall as golems, with vine-covered stone bodies, walking on four wooden legs bound to stone feet covered in runes and moss. They remain immobile until attacks on the forest (or someone drawing enough magical power to disturb the Veil) rouse them. Then they wake to hunt the perpetrators with two wooden arms that end in thick metal blades imbued with lyrium. The arms swing in predictable patterns–they're enchanted, not thinking. And with sufficient force, they can be "killed."

Between all of this and the unfamiliarity of the landscape, it may take time to notice the biggest problem of all, which is: time is fucked.

At its mildest, traversing the same ground might take an hour going one way but two or three hours going the other, as if it's stretched out somehow, despite no clear changes to the landscape to justify the added time. If there is added time? They may burn through rations and tire as if a whole day has passed, while the sun hangs unmoving in the sky or it stays dark for just as long, and return to the base camp to find they've been gone only a few days instead of the weeks they thought. And even a confident navigator may march confidently north for several hours before realizing they've been going south the whole time (or have they).

The effects become more severe the closer to the center of the ancient city one goes. At some point a team might find themselves going in circles no matter what they do to avoid it. And that's not the worst of it. If someone is inventive enough to begin marking a passed landmark with tally marks, they'll find the count flickering back and forth each time they pass it, requiring them to put the marks down out of order: their second time past the stone, then their seventh, then their fourth.

Their sending crystals work—erratically. Sometimes not at all. Sometimes with long waits between answering messages. Sometimes with responses to the five questions they asked in silence arriving out of order. To those on the other end–or those waiting for them when they arrive back at Riftwatch's underground base—nothing unusual will seem to be happening, and their trips back and forth no longer than expected.

And it gets worse!

Through all of this, visitors to the forest may begin to see themselves and others in their traveling party, some distance ahead or behind them–mirroring their actions, having conversations, before or after the real ones do or did or might have done the same. While you're not oblivious to them, they are oblivious to you–the best way to tell the real from the mirage. Except they are not exactly mirages. They affect the world around them. A bridge that breaks beneath their feet ahead of you will still be broken when you reach it; should you break the bridge, the copies behind you will stop at the destruction to plan another way around.

No one is bound to the fates of these forwards- and backwards-echoes: should a double fall off a cliff ahead of you, you can choose to be more careful or avoid the area altogether to prevent the same mishap. Attacking animals, demons, and enemies will see them, as well as you, and may be convinced to go after them instead. Or they may pick them off ahead of you, giving you some forewarning of what you're about to step into.

Despite their apparent solidity in these moments, they don't last. The branches they have bent will remain bent, their footprints will remain printed, and the debris that tumbles over a cliff's edge with them will remain piled at the bottom, but they themselves inevitably disappear when no one is looking. They're only people who might have been.

IV. THE AMAZING RACE

Anyway, Riftwatch didn't come here to hang out with possessed trees and walk in endless circles for fun. Teams are sent into the woods in specific directions or in pursuit of particular landmarks, combing the forest for signs of a Gate or the Gate itself. They may travel three or four days in one direction—three or four real days, however brief or long they feel to those doing the traveling—before reaching their destinations. Along the way they'll have to make and break camp in the safest places they can find, forage and hunt to supplement their rations, and keep their eyes peeled for the forest's other intruders.

Corypheus' people are here too. Venatori, Red Templar, or corrupted Wardens and various lackeys have fanned out within the forest, searching for the same things Riftwatch is. Intelligence indicates they don't know for certain that a Gate is nearby. Riftwatch would like to keep it that way, so the rules are a little different this time. They can't know that Riftwatch is here. Everyone who ventures into the forest will be required to dress like they could be hunters, bandits, or recluses. And anyone who could report that Riftwatch is there can't leave the forest alive, and they need to look like they've been killed by something or someone other than Riftwatch.

This could mean ambushes and traps, herding them into angry wildlife or forest monsters (or vice versa), arranging for mysterious accidents, anything that maintains the Venatori's illusion that they are in a one horse race to the Gate. And in the meantime, the enemy search parties need to be tracked, misled, and thwarted whenever possible, and any information they have—clues they're following, records of areas already searched, maps—stolen or, if that's not possible, destroyed.

Sometimes these plans will be complicated by the presence of time-rippling doppelgangers. Your team might agree to sneak up on an enemy camp in silence, only for copies of you who came to some other agreement, apparently, to launch a coordinated fire-raining attack in the background. Or they might be ahead of you when you sneak in, oblivious to your presence while they beat you to slitting throats or stealing notes. During firefights it may not be possible to tell whether the person you've just watched die is your friend or only one of their echoes. And Corypheus' people are suffering the same effects: a man you ambush on the trail might only be a double of the real man, arriving on the scene a minute later to see himself already dead on the ground, suddenly very on guard.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I: CRYSTAL

Mmph. Not to be woefully antithetical to my affliction's monstrous superstitions, but....is it just me, or has anyone felt like they're being watched? Heard rustling in the trees?

Spotted something treading after them in the dark....

Can't tell if it's Venatori or something else, but I've been spied on by everyone's favorite Imeldific fanatical-bastards before, and it never felt quiet like this.

[To which, he adds sharply:]

And I'd keep my wolf with me just in case, but the damned nuisance won't leave Fenris' side. Starting to suspect the man is bribing her for her attention, which is awful, you know—

The least he could do is buy us both out.

[When was the last time he got a pretty ribbon or a spare bone or strip of torn flesh as a treat, he asks you???]

II: SEEING RED

[It's a show of stillness in midday sun. A flicker of pallid white between overgrown, verdant green foliage— a strange glint of red, glittering in the shadows.

Astarion, that is, hunched forward and low, still as death itself and only half-obscured in something akin to the way a tiger prowls for its next meal without having found a proper mark just yet. Prim movements turned bestial by nature, part of who he truly is when the figurative mask is off: his clothes are still dark for practicality's sake, but his taste runs specific, and the halla leather kit he's either bought at cost or stolen is one far finer than the average Dalish would normally sport— flecked with pitch black Keeper feathers and dots of sparse, spattered gold. He wears gloves, of course, and checks over his shoulder often, twisting his stare left and right within an encircling mess of thin, painted markings that've been scribbled across his brow, cheeks and lips. It's not accurate, as far as vallaslin go. It doesn't belong to any god or goddess. No clans. Nothing at all.

He's wearing a costume, in essence. But he's only fooling passing humans, and like Hells does he imagine anyone in Corypheus' expendable fleet is going to actually notice the inaccuracy.

His nose tips towards the air, sniffing softly. He can't identify it, whatever it is. Ozone, yes, scorched and yet....different.]

Something's nearby.

Not sure what. [He murmurs low beneath his breath.]

Whatever it is, though, I doubt it's pleasant.

III: WILDCARD

[ooc: u kno what's up! mix and match, combine the two prompts, make up your own— chase your dreams and let's do this.]

( this is a bad idea— )

You're in Arlathan and you can braid hair, right.

( maybe he can't. it feels obvious that he should be able to, but isn't that how they met, didn't he need her to do it, maybe he can't and— )

If you aren't or you can't then I'll manage, don't worry about it.

Of course, and of course.

If there's a sweaty, miserable, entirely-too-hot place for me to languish in, why wouldn't I be dragged to it? [The most rhetorical question not at all aimed at her, amore huffing and puffing rather than blowing anyone's house down, for that matter.

Petty whinging is self-care, argues local vampiric elf.]

Consider my hands yours.

[Still, curiosity speaks, as ever:]

What's the occasion, darling? Too much woodland heat driving you mad?

I have too much fucking hair,

( is a little too brittle-bright, especially for the delay it comes at — she opts to let pass the complaining, since it's not as if she wouldn't under other circumstances join him in it, but for a moment it's so ordinary that it is both comforting and impossible to respond to. )

I can fold the scarf like Iorveth and I showed Loxley how but my hair keeps making it slip and I think if the scarf is part of the braids it'll be more secure. Over my—

I'm missing an eye. I need to cover it better.

[Well, it makes sense. Humidity with hair as long as his is nightmarish already. Add to that her far more extensive casc—

He stops.

Somewhere out in the wilds, long ears perk slightly, struggling to make certain he didn't mishear her in some misery-laden haze.]

You—

[There you go, Astarion, get it out.]

—what do you mean you're missing an eye?

( gwenaëlle is almost certain she's going to prefer when people can just see it in person, and she doesn't have to explain, although she hasn't considered that they may still ask. )

Spirits impersonating cunts are also cunts. We went into the temple the Venatori are here for. I had to trade it. It's— it wasn't violent, it's as if it were already healed. But it's gone, I need to adapt.

Trade, as in the damn thing took it from you—

[There's a note of distress in his voice. It's hard to say whether or not it's because he's upset for her, or the simple concept of having her eye snatched out by whatever sadistic magic guards this place, but in truth, both might be the inevitable, almost obvious answer: games were Cazador's favored choice whenever it came to torture, loss, coercion or— sadistic, idle torment. Even a year feels too fresh from it, in all honesty.

And he certainly knows what it's like to lose.]

Well. I can at least hide the damage for you easily, if nothing else.

[Soft. Softer, really.]

....did you at least get what you were after?

The Venatori didn't, and research can tell us exactly what it was we got. Other than 'more information about ancient elves loving blood magic'—

( she stops herself, when it seems like she might be more than ready to just complain about every element of the experience. finally, )

I did my job, ( she settles on. )

Edited (redundancy) 2022-10-21 07:37 (UTC)

You always do. [Playful, uniquely gentle-mouthed— if not warm, to say the least. People often promise that a solid time out is sometimes the best remedy for creatures carved from oil and water, and in this case....well. Maybe there's some truth in that.

Or maybe Astarion's just a touch more docile from present circumstance. Hard to say.]

Tell me where to meet you, though. If we're going to talk, we might as well do it while putting to rights how this wretched place has done you wrong.

( it means something that he says so. )

My tent isn't far from the eluvian— I can wait outside it for you, you won't be able to miss me. Just aim for the eluvian and then hang a bit of a left.

( the scarf she's presently wearing is ... secure enough, if she only has to stand and wait, and can fidget with it, hang onto its edges, adjust it. too much hair; it doesn't sit the same on her curls as it does on loxley, or iorveth. it won't stay, if she can't keep adjusting it. )

[It isn't strange to see her vulnerable— Hells, he's been there at some of the lower lows, unintentionally driving them into the dirt beneath his heels by trampling it all.

Call it determination, then, that he doesn't want to make this a reprise of so many earlier disasters.

(Call it habitual madness, then, that Astarion can only ever be himself despite the best intentions he can muster.)

Still, it's a soft click from the tip of his tongue that meets the back of his front teeth when he sees her, expression henishly mild, framed a mess of dark feathers and half-masked by a miserable scattering of painted lines meant to play temporary vallaslin; the oddest 'Dalish' to perhaps ever exist.]

I leave you to your own devices and you loose a bloody eye to a bunch of ghosts.

[Oh, so much toothless huffing, all let out as he strides in close enough to prop himself up against the nearest leanable surface, beckoning her closer with a single slap to his thigh.] Come on, darling, let's set you right.

Spirits impersonating false gods,

( because you'll know she's in real trouble when she can't even muster up that habitual, insufferable pedantry. maker forbid gwenaëlle ever pass up the opportunity to be precise—

though maybe this time the distinction matters, under the circumstances. maybe not in this moment, but more broadly. certainly, she thinks the false part of false gods merits emphasis, bitterness lacing her familiarity.

none of it slows her, anyway; she goes to sit in front of him, unwinding the scarf herself because she prefers to be the one who does it. it would look casual if her jaw were not quite so firmly set, this steely thing who will break before she bends. there is—

there are no scars. no dried blood, no...sign of a trauma, except for the absence of what was there before. one amber eye familiar from all the times she's narrowed it at him, and an empty socket beside it, clean and terrible. )

I've got a comb, ( she says. )

Strewth, it's too damned hot.

[Around the edges of the camp, Ataashi snuffles and sniffs at everything— occasionally flitting off into the forested underbrush in a pulse of green light. She never goes far. At least, Astarion doesn't think she goes far; any time there's a commotion or one of them calls for her, she's back just as swiftly as she'd vanished, and who really knows how Fade travel actually works, anyway?

So. Off she darts again for the hundredth time tonight, and in its wake Astarion's attention lifts from where he's slumped across a fallen log (relatively clean, as far as anything wild goes, thank the gods), arms splayed on either side the way a Lowtown thug performatively drapes against a bar ledge for the luxury of cheap drama: black pauldron feathers scrunched high around his face via his own raised shoulders, framing a jawline streaked with blood red paint— its sharp slopes visible beneath white curls that've grown too long these last few months, and in the Arlathan's nightbound humidity and heat, a little unable to maintain their shape. He spots gold-green eyes peering back from over the fire, and lyrium leylines surrounding that, and....

....it occurs to him that there's a joke to be made, starting with the opening line: a Fade wolf, a lyrium-steeped elf, and a Fade-touched elf make camp in a very old, very haunted forest.

His huffed exhale is a sour thing. It smells of alcohol and petulance alike.]

At this rate all the wine I brought is going to boil— [Said with a gloved-index-fingered tap to the (admittedly) warm bottle clutched within his opposite hand, contents sloshing for good measure.]

Be a dear, would you....if you're not going to provide shelter and sustenance for me in my hour of need, would you at least fetch another bottle from my pack. [By shelter and sustenance, he means more than bedrolls or hand-gutted fish.

Two days into the forest, with every last bite of tender Hightown-bought fillets exhausted on day one, he's fairly certain he might die.]

Oh— and the elfroot, too. Or the powder beneath that.

[Brat. Leto thinks it with lazy affection as he (slowly, at his own pace) rises from his seat, grabbing the entire pack rather than bother to dig through it. Brat, complaining and fussing from the moment they arrived here, hating the heat and the dirt, fussing over the rations and the discomfort of a bedroll . . . and oh, if it hasn't been the sweetest distraction from where they are and what they're doing. He does not know if Astarion is doing it on purpose (he might, insightful thing that he is) or truly hates the outdoors so much (equally likely, given how he fusses whenever Ataashi licks him), but either way, it's a boon.]

It could be worse.

[He isn't nearly so sweaty, but he enjoys this kind of weather. Or— well, perhaps not the humidity, but the heat, at least, pleases him. After too many years suffering through Kirkwall's eternal dampness and perpetual chill, he's glad to feel warmth in the tips of his ears and toes. Coming to sit next to Astarion, he sets the pack before him and grabs for that bottle.]

You could be alone here, without someone to lay out your bedroll or teach you how to gut and skin prey, and wither away to nothing in your helplessness.

[It's fond, if not a little wearied at the edges. He takes a sip from wine that's too warm and tweaks a feather on Astarion's costume.]

What powder did you bring? A drug?

[Not that he'd say no to some elfroot, but on the other hand . . . mmph, he's only too aware of how easily the forest can hide enemies. They're relatively safe, the rest of Riftwatch a yell away, but still.]

Helpless?

[The look Astarion snaps Leto's way could light tinder, indignant and fussy to say the least. His skin thinner than wet paper; he was the one who started nipping first.]

Whelp that you are, you wouldn't last a day out here without my fangs at your back.

[And yet he pulls the bottle free with an abrupt tug that's more transparent than it seems: the narrow strip of crimson cloth visible around Leto's wrist pulled closer via a hold that takes more than it asks (aside from his ring and little finger sliding low over the other elf's knuckles, their doting gentleness such a contrast to the wicked, full-fanged smirk he wears).

Even whilst huffing, he can't seem to stop his own body from lending itself to affection. Tsk.

Whether Leto does or doesn't let go, Astarion drinks directly from the bottle's opened lip anyway, painting a near-perfect recreation of two packmates grousing and tugging over a single bone. No real bite. Plenty of stubborn bark. Once-pinched feathers brushing across tanned skin scored by strips of narrow lyrium— before he relinquishes his stolen prize, and leans forward over his knees to tuck into rooting around inside that ragged little pack.]

First you insult me, pilfer my generously brought wine [It's Leto's wine, actually. If they're getting technical about it.] and now you're sniffing about my cherished hoard hoping to lap up a little for yourself?

[A brat indeed. Proud and haughty, and—

(All too aware of how his dour-faced companion keeps flicking his stare towards the woods that surround them. His ears tipped low, attentively piqued whenever conversation lulls, or he thinks Astarion lies sleeping. It doesn't take a mastermind to suss out why, either. They're far north. As far north as anyone can feasibly go on foot. Wedged right in the dead center of old, old places that— if superstitious rumors or passed-on myths hold weight of any sort— are historically bound to Leto's bloodline. His heritage, in short. Something that isn't shared between the both of them.

After all, Astarion might look like a duck, talk like a duck, and quack like one, too— albeit with swannish charm— but Thedas' transcendental framework isn't shy about constantly reminding him he isn't one. They're different beasts, even if the vampire refuses to actively believe it; secretly committed to meaning it each time he calls his young pup Eladrin.

And aside from all that, they're also inside the borders of the Imperium itself.)

Clutching his gilded tin of wrapped elfroot cigarettes— and a narrow pouch full of aromatic powder— he rolls back into place. Sort of. Because honestly? He's sweaty. He's tired. He's otherwise miserable outside of present company and destined to expire of starvation according to all his wilted puffing. Ergo, he's allowed to rest his cheek across Leto's thigh in languid recline instead of sitting mostly upright as he did before.

Aka: he's decided it. End of story.]

Mmph. You're so lucky I like the sound of that pretty voice of yours. [A smug, passing little beat; deft fingers tugging open the pouch's strings.] Even when it isn't gasping out my name like it should be....

[Brat.]

Smoke. [He admits with an upwards tilt of his chin that curves his neck back a little more steeply, ensuring the grin that peeks out from a mess of indistinct crow feathers is flashed right where his companion can see it.

The pouch tips. Its contents spilling out into his palm, black as night— though every individual granule of dust-fine powder glitters in flickering firelight.]

True smoke.

The kind carefully curated by a mage with extremely skilled hands— a rare find, given the pristine quality. [An expensive find.]

[That's another thing, he thinks, stroking his fingers through Astarion's sweat-damp curls. They haven't fucked in days. Oh, there's been indulgences, wandering hands and heated kisses, the two of them tucked away into the shadows as they found what relief they could, but it isn't the release they've both grown used to having on a daily basis. It's stupid to be frustrated by it— how many years had he spent celibate? A few days shouldn't leave him squirming, and yet . . .

And yet, he thinks, it agitates them both. It's the least of all the factors here, admittedly, but still: he's sure it's grating on both their nerves. One last wary glance out into the darkness, knowing how futile such a gesture is, before he focuses his attention back towards Astarion.

(Danarius is dead. Danarius has been dead for years on end, but still, Leto knows he'll haunt his nightmares tonight. It's inevitable, a thing he has resigned himself towards from the moment they'd left home).]

And are you going to share that smoke? Or am I to serve as pillow for your precious head and little more?

[Another toothless bite, but he leans forward, staring with interest despite himself. He's never seen such a large quantity, and oh, he can't imagine how much it cost. Perhaps not cost Astarion; his love has sticky fingers, after all. Another swig of wine, and ah, that's it for that bottle, but there's at least one or two more Astarion has packed away.]

How do you take it, anyway? [Smoke it, obviously, and he waves his free hand, dismissing that question.] I simply mean— are you adding it to the elfroot cigarettes, or rolling it a joint of its own?

No idea, actually.

[He crowishly puffs out, amusement etched across his face both for being figuratively nosed at, and for realizing that— ] Apparently when one steals a treasure like this from its 'rightful' owners, it doesn't exactly come with instructions.

And despite my one year anniversary having come and gone [thank you, is proudly mouthed out loud to no one in particular] I'm still earning my banding stripes as far as familiarity with certain aspects of this— [ah, but he amends himself before he starts: changing what would be world into] —place. [After all, who knows what Venatori might be watching them even now? In the thick of the woods, Leto is a bright, alluring flicker of walking, talking starlight perched against an otherwise dark palette in the growing dusk; he can't hide himself— not really— and Astarion won't begrudge him for not trying to. Not even here, of all places.

It just means he's a little more careful about choosing his own responses. No ungloved hands. No Rifter talk.

Sitting upright after tugging on a few suspended strands of silver hair (one swift, firm yank over dangling bangs) that ends with a teasing kiss to the end of Leto's nose while he'd been snared via that tethering hold, Astarion turns around to pop open his box of cigarettes with his opposite hand: laying one joint over the spot on Leto's thigh where his own head had been, and hunching over it slightly as he unrolls it with care between two fingers until it and its contents lie flat, unfurled.]

I suppose we could try sprinkling it in. Seeing if it feels any different, and then take it from there?

—or you could hold out that charming tongue and let me slide a taste of this to the back of your throat as-is.

[He shouldn't look half as pleased as he does when he offers the second option.]

This is probably not the ideal location to try a new substance . . .

[Frankly, it's the height of foolishness to grow intoxicated right now, Leto thinks. When they're in a forest that might well be crawling with Venatori and assuredly teems with magic, altering their perception of the world is the single stupidest thing they could indulge in. They've no idea what this smoke does, and what if it utterly incapacitates them? What will they do if they're attacked? What if this is some kind of trap— what if some undercover agent placed this right where Astarion might find it for just this reason? What if slavers attack, what if—

But he's been thinking of what ifs from the moment they left Kirkwall. He's been sick to his stomach with it, tensed up for Astarion (so aware of how his beloved must be suffering, that anchor shard aching the further they get from Kirkwall), battling away old memories . . . and the group isn't far. If there is an attack, they aren't on their own out here. They've allies to help them. And anyway, another part of Leto argues, it would be stupid for anyone to try anything right now. Attacking a fortified base is only worth trying if you're damn sure you've the numbers to take it; otherwise it's a suicide mission.

So why not, Leto thinks. Why not. They deserve a night of indulgence. Besides: it's hard to argue with Astarion when he's nipping so deliberately.]

Sprinkle it in.

[That seems safest, for a given value of safe. But ah . . . he glances behind them, eyes studying the darkness of the cave. They're a ways off from the others, but still, he does so like his privacy. But no, they're alone— and so Leto turns back to Astarion, his eyes a little darker. His tongue extends, and for a moment it seems as if he'll stay like that, pliant and obedient— before his hand darts forward. In one swift movement he's swiped a finger through that powder and set it to his tongue, black stark against red. He lingers there for a moment, amusement glittering in his eyes— before he grins sharply as he settles back.]

Come here, now, bossy thing. Come kiss me, so that we might have it on both our tongues.

Compelling argument, amatus.

[Hesitation might as well be a word he's never learned— alongside restraint, and inhibition, and modesty— at least as far as Leto is involved: the moment that soot-soaked tongue unfurled beneath one roaming fingertip (he is a predator at heart still, too quick to note the glossy well of glistening spit intermingling with flecks of glittering sand on a near microscopic level), Astarion's already twisted around on his heels, black feathers rustling around his lowered shoulders like a fanning mane. Toes perched beside splayed fingers, posture both weightless and formless in the segue that repositions him across Leto's lap instead— opened joint knocked into the dirt, bits of elfroot vanishing into a sea of wood charr brown.

His weight is comfortably heavy. His thighs straddle narrow hips, armor jabbing here and there, but none of it hedges on uncomfortable. His free hand anchors itself to the center of the other elf's chest, and he— ironically— smells smoke in the air when he leans down slowly over the open offer of a waiting mouth.

And yet what would Astarion be, if not excessive in his mischief?

At the very last second— with all the speed of a viper twisting its neck to snatch up scurrying prey— he drags the full flat of his tongue across the cache of midnight powder still clutched within his palm, and uses that very same momentum to turn and seize Leto's mouth with his own: a locking kiss that's as drenched in kohl as it is raw lust. Too many fears, too little privacy— its alchemical endpoint being not enough satiety between them since stepping beyond Kirkwall's bounds (and if he doesn't look at his anchor shard, the same way he doesn't look at spirits or elvhen ruins, his mind does the work of pretending it isn't there). He's an underexercised peregrine turning restlessness on a waiting glove.

What fills his touch is as warm and yielding as what fills his mouth in those few seconds. Again, and again— taking an inch and giving— no, only taking, actually. His sharp teeth nipping and scraping even when he pulls away to catch his breath, kiss-glossed grin so lopsided it might as well be sideways.]

—nice to see you haven't lost your bite alongside your bark. [Gloved thumb resting against the elf's lower lip— Astarion presses in a gentler imitation of the way someone might pry a wolf's muzzle open. Not forcing it, only insisting, really.

Crimson eyes the bloodiest shade in the shadow of long lashes, searching out the color of Leto's tongue.]

Hm.

[Low. Light.]

I don't feel anything yet. [Maybe they've done this wrong? Leto could've been right, after all: the thing is called 'smoke', not 'pour it over your tongue like an unattended child in a vat of sugar'.]

—Do you?

[Wicked thing. Terrible, ruinous, wondrous thing, perfect in every way, for the moment their mouths crash together, Leto forgets his fears. The paranoia of who might be watching and what horrors might befall them ease away with his first heated exhale; by the time he tips his head and meets each of those greedy demands with pushing force of his own, the tension has eased out of his body. One hand darts up, fingers wrapping tight around the back of Astarion's neck, keeping him anchored close as Leto's hips buck up in open demand. Not to rut, no, but Astarion's ass is so alluring when he perches in his lap like a king settling atop his throne. All plush curves and agile movements— fuck, and his other hand settles at the small of his back, fingers splayed out as he draws him in closer.

Maker, he really is addicted, he thinks in dazed amusement. It's only been a few days, but it might as well have been a few months for the heated hunger that only grows with every pulsing push and pull of their lips. More, more, and Astarion is so keen on taking, but he isn't the only one: Leto bites when Astarion draws back, nipping his lip too sharply in petulant protest. Don't stop, though his chest is heaving for lack of air. For a moment he does nothing but stare up at him, his eyes locked on spit-slick lips— but oh, that's a good question.]

Mph. No. Not yet.

[But it's only been a few moments. In the meantime . . . Leto's nose wrinkles as he pulls at the clasp of Astarion's pauldrons. He can give or take feathers, but he does not particularly enjoy seeing Astarion in his Dalish guise. It's not bad, exactly, it's just . . . discomfiting, perhaps, is the word. Besides: Astarion looks far better half-naked, if you ask Leto, so what's the downside?]

What are we meant to be feeling? I have never—

[His fingers are still fumbling with the clasp. He remembers that later, when the drugs have cleared out of their system and he's coherent once more. He's fumbling with the clasp, his mouth achingly kiss-sore, his tongue tasting of nothing so much as smoke, and he's wondering when he's meant to be feeling anything—

And just like that, everything drops.

It's not unpleasant. It's un-unpleasant, Leto thinks with dreamy amusement. The opposite of unpleasant. It's like . . . it's like being separate from his body, or his mind is untethered, or . . . something. He's not stupid, he knows where they are and what's happening, but oh . . . mmph, it doesn't really seem to matter much right now, does it? It's all distant details, a faded backdrop as he tips his head up and catches sight of the most beautiful person he's ever seen, glowing like starlight above him.]

It's, ah . . . yes. A bit.

[A bit. It's only a little bit relaxing, a little bit of a drop— or is it a lot? His eyes try to dart up, focusing on Astarion's face instead of just drinking him in as a whole, but it takes him ages. He blinks deliberately as his hands slide slowly down his torso, tracing over sweat-damp skin and snagging against darkened leather . . . mmph, he likes Astarion in leather. He likes him in a lot of things, but not, and this is important, not as a Dalish. It's a necessary disguise, yes, but still. He shouldn't have it on anymore— and yet he does, impudent thing. So rude. So terribly rude, and it's about that time Fenris realizes he's been doing nothing but staring very intently up at Astarion for the past few minutes.]

[Oh. Oh, there it is at last. Slow ignition alight in his veins, felt only by that initial push that comes from Leto's pawing grasp as he tries to lever back against it— like a shaken rattle or a water-filled bauble, the world suddenly spins around him in dizzying increments that leave him gawping: breathless and blinking and equally inutile for all that his sense of balance (or reflexes, for that matter) can't seem to recover. A child, blinking at jingling trinkets. Shallower than the windblown smoke wafting through camp on an angled breeze. Dilated all over, rather than just within the depths of his own accordingly wine-dark eyes.

Strangely, he feels in control of himself despite it all.

Or perhaps— no, in control is too strong a phrasing. He feels himself despite it all: able to think and comprehend spacial awareness just as surely as ever, but the sluggish disconnect between body and mind is so potent, there's no reconciling the difference— his mental input's more limpid than molasses, he tries to steer himself and either winds too far forward or too far back, still licking his own chops to lap up the ashen taste of electricity and rainfall after a blaze. Petrichor smoke. Split ozone. Leto.

(Oh, love. Oh, beautiful wolf— dark in his shadow, carved from bright lyrium and white hair and gold-green eyes. Oh, oh— )

And then he feels himself jostle again beneath tugging fingers. One yank— two. Clasp rattling loudly in his ears.]

Will you stop fuss— [The noise he makes is almost a growl, for what it's worth, lip curling high around a warning flash of overlong canines. The reward for shaking him from his reverie. How long have they been sitting here like this? how long has— ]

—stop fussing.

[Another latent pull from sinking fingertips running hot across dark leather snags the last bit of his own heady patience: he swats at Leto's closest hand with his own, bristling like a cat whose fur's been rubbed wrong.

Rude. So terribly rude]

Quit pawing at me, if you want me to undress, you only have to— [Elegant creature that he is, his heel abruptly slips in the struggle to readjust himself, and he lurches forward to plant both palms on Leto's chest, displaced heel kicking (and overturning that half-finished bottle of wine), eliciting a bark of stupid laughter, forehead pressed over Leto's own. Exhale sweet as spice and smoke, and cool, even in the depths of so much humidity.]

Now look what you've done.

—ask nicely, wicked pup.

[Truthfully? He doesn't want to stay clothed in this mess. It's warm, and his head is spinning, and he wants to kiss his darling as much as he wants to bite those fingers for tugging— which is why he grabs them with his own hands. Dizzy and swaying, smirking like he's all too eager to swallow the nearest canary, even if there's nothing else around but one very pretty wolf.]

Mm . . . no.

[It's not the falsely thoughtful retort it might have been a few minutes ago, a spirited taunt that served as open invitation to bite and growl and fight. Instead: it's all but dreamy, Leto's eyes black and, though slightly unfocused, still locked on Astarion's face. Everything comes at such a distance right now, registered and immediately dismissed as unimportant. The wine is spilling (indeed, he can feel it soaking into his trousers, hot and sticky); he thinks (dreamily, so distantly) that normally, Astarion does like a bit more finesse. Not romance, exactly, but foreplay, oh, yes. Teasing remarks and hungry kisses, breathless flirtations murmured to one another as they race to undress, oh, yes, he likes that so very much. Normally right now Leto would lean up to steal a kiss, placating and teasing both. Or perhaps (more likely) he'd stoke him on further: tearing at his clothes, yanking at him so Astarion could moan eagerly about how brutish he was being before sinking his fangs deep into him.

But Leto thinks only in straight lines now (and then again they aren't straight at all, looping and wheeling like songbirds finally allowed to fly before being coaxed back into their flight pattern). The simplest and most direct path seems easiest. Quit pawing at me, Astarion scolds, and one dark eyebrow raises in quiet curiosity. His hand is caught between Astarion's own, but his other rises, slipping between them. It happens within the space of a breath: his fingers twitching up, the edge of one gauntlet catching and slicing through leather like a hot knife through butter.

There. Much easier than fumbling with buckles, Leto thinks with hazy satisfaction, watching as his pauldrons and outer layers suddenly go slack around his shoulders.]

I do not think I have to, Astarion.

[Let him keep his other hand. Let him stay pressed so close, his breath sweet against Leto's lips, their noses bumping together even as he smirks impudently up at him. One quick movement shoves that pauldron off Astarion's shoulders, and just like that, some of his amatus is returned to him. There's still that false vallaslin to contend with, but . . . Leto's smirk grows, his chin tipping up in unmistakable self-satisfaction as his fingers drag down.

He's so good with his gauntlets. He has to be, his claws as sharp as knives, easily capable of splitting skin and cleaving flesh— he has to be so terribly deft no matter what he does. So though he's high, though his mind reels, though the world is slowly dissolving and he feels a contented euphoria unlike any he's ever known before— still, there's such deftness to the way he traces the tip of his gauntlet down the line of Astarion's chest, exerting just enough pressure to sting without outright breaking skin.]

Ask nicely, filthy thing, and I shall spare the rest of your clothes, hm?

[His voice roughened, his smirk melting into something more reckless as his claws reach the hem of Astarion's trousers, tugging teasingly at the hem.]

Or shall the whole camp get an eyeful of you . . .?

[Those claws. Those gorgeous talons.

He's too dazed; for a moment he forgets Leto's gauntlets exist (it's only on this mission that he's finally seen them taken from their fixed place within the mansion)— and his spinning mind instead imagines that his beloved companion unfurls gleaming claws like some great cat leaping after prey, too slow to react before it's done: cooler air smacking into his skin from his throat down across the center of his breastbone, eliciting a rolling shiver that prickles underneath perfectly arranged fingertips— and forces his profile a few degrees more harshly against Leto's in turn.

It's exhilarating.

He lets out a low hitch of sucked-in breath as his head drops back, unable to play coy for as long as those knife-sharp assets meander as they please. Beast, he thinks he mutters over the shape of a tightening grip. Or maybe it's brute, or bastard— something with a b— he's busy sipping down starlight like a bottle of Abyssal Peach; he can't tell down from up anymore, and fasta vass, he doesn't at all care to.

All that churlish muttering wedged in before he (sort of) hears 'I do not think I have to', and part of him agrees. The part of him that's bare. The part of him that's so happy just to have his darling perched and purring beneath him, that he'd do anything to hear Leto take to whining or pleading or outright moaning in upended bliss— his troubled mind clear and his body listlessly sprawled to the very last centimeter, all that lyrium quieted for once....or for longer (Astarion's a creature of excess by nature, when all's said and done, and vampirism means he hasn't forgotten the corruptive urge to push for more). How pretty, he thinks, Leto would look like this for weeks at a time. Or for months. Or always—

Cut short by the tug of fingers at his hem.

Oh, it might've taken an eternity for him to look down, and one more for him to realize what he's staring at, but in the end, Astarion's smokestruck brain finally puts two and two together when he spots pale skin bright and deeply contrasted against a framing sprawl of dark, unlatched leather. His shoulders are bare. Feathers somewhere else (behind him, which might as well be the fucking moon for how stupidly narrow his addled focus is), calf and thigh wet from wine, that— ah. That's right, he'd spilled it. Wine. Was it wine? No, elfroot. No, it must've been smoke. And Leto—

Leto cut his armor.

(Twice-confirmed truth briefly tempered by the actuality that it's nothing short of impressive, how much control the man's still masterfully exercising in this state.

....it's also absolutely infuriating.)]

I'll show you asking nicely—

[And in a flash Astarion's dropped his hold on Leto's other hand, both of his own latching onto straight white locks— drawing the marked elf's head back in order to bare his throat in supine surrender, Astarion's jagged fangs open and poised to bite.

Mm, but the problem is, he's high. Higher by the minute, even, and so all that fearsome predatory drive is lazy outside the idling measure of his cognitive awareness. He sees tattoo lines on approach, embossed and glassy— and he salivates rather than solely seethes by the time he reaches them, his inevitable assault fierce but ultimately (unintendedly) carnal, his hips rocking forward without much care for how he might draw blood from pushing himself right into those perched talons time and time again.

Another scolding bite added between each word spoken:]

Quit— ruining— my disguise— impius parum minas.

[He moans when Astarion growls at him in Tevene. He can't help it, not at home and certainly not here, not when Astarion's tongue sounds so good caressing its way around sharp syllables. It's too loud a noise (which is to say it has any volume whatsoever); it lasts forever and ends far too quickly, a ragged moan that trails off as he gasps up at the starlight. Time moves like molasses in this moment, sticky-sweet and slow: he feels every millisecond of Astarion's teeth nipping at his throat, saliva smearing against skin and the familiar sharp sting as those fangs slice through soft skin. Blood wells to the surface, and he knows he'll be sporting cuts alongside the inevitable bruises (oh, here comes one now: his lips latching against his neck, his tongue pressing teasingly against tender skin as he suckles there for a long moment. Bare skin slides against his armor, his thighs so strong as they fit around his hips . . . Leto drinks in those details one after another, queued up neatly in a tantalizing row, too addled to take it all at once.

Too addled, too, to keep track of his talons. Truthfully, he barely knows he has them on; he barely remembers he has hands, or a body, or that he, himself, is a person. Blood spills over his fingers, hot and wet, and some part of him dully registers he must have cut Astarion (twice, he'll figure out later, razor-sharp scratches that are more inconvenient than dangerous). He smears it idly against his skin as he blindly runs a hand over him, smoothing against bare skin, grinning up at the moon like a fool as he does.]

I like you better without your disguise.

[It's absolutely true, though there's a vague attempt to sound flirtatiously coy. Needle-sharp claws drag against bare skin as Leto's hand meanders, teasing Astarion into arching his back, heat coursing through him when he hears a sharp inhale.]

You are no Dalish, no more than I am. Noli abscondere, non a me . . . mm, take the rest of it off.

[The rest being Astarion's trousers— which he cuts a small slice into, right at the hem. It's barely noticeable and easily fixed, but on the other hand, who said Leto intends to stop there? They are a little ways from camp, but the truth is, Leto doesn't remember there are others near. He doesn't remember where they are or why he was so damned nervous all day; he doesn't even remember what year it is. All he knows is that Astarion feels so good against him, hot and heavy and perfect, and all he wants to do is lose himself in him.]

Now.

Mmnh. Te amo, cum sis imperiosi. [Nose crinkling palpably beneath Leto's chin, sometimes he wonders if it's refreshing for his darling amatus, speaking in Tevene compared to the Common Tongue— the span of his past, its highs and cruelest downswings alike. Unlike these woods or Kirkwall's streets (one familiar while the other isn't; the order reversed compared to what most humans assume, no doubt), Tevinter is his root. Tevene his language. His mouth. His tongue. What sharp ears still strain themselves to hear (as much as they likely dread to hear it, too).

Ah, not right now, of course—

Right now, Astarion's entirely oversaturated by everything else in play: too overstimulated to be numb, too numb to be overstimulated— forming the strangest paradoxical coexistence Astarion's conscious mind has ever tried to simultaneously stuff down into its own greedy gullet, leaving no room for sentimental pondering, only touch and sensory pressure and desire and drug (and smoke, and smoke, and smoke)— but sometimes, yes, he wonders if that's why there's always such a sudden pique to Leto's responses, whenever Astarion opts to flex his budding linguistic prowess. Other moments when he can operate around the sensual incompatibility of too much and too little, busier and busier now with his present preoccupation: dragging his tongue over welling bite marks. Appeasably lapping at bruising skin.

Oh, be pretty for him again. Moan for him again. Leto the songbird. Leto, his vicious hunter. A thousand little flickers of breathy praise dripping from his wicked mouth, glossier than beading drops of ruby or garnet— the necklace he weaves for his beloved counterpart with pure, unfiltered devotion the way bitter liqueur is often dipped in molten sugar.

He's forgotten where his own hands are.

—actually, he's forgotten he has hands.]

Non dissimulo tibi. [He scoffs as leather splits almost silently. A dull hiss Astarion can only feel while drinking in Leto's words. Mm. It sounds sweet, though. The posed concept of hide and seek. That this is just Leto fussing over being kept at bay by false disguises and well-stitched tanning, all the more impatient for whatever gunpowder tang's still slithering across his tongue.

But even intoxicated Astarion is a shrewd Astarion, apparently. Incorrigible and playful— particularly feeling the tack of his own blood. He grins so wide when he sits back, shedding thick layers via roaming fingers, deliberately arching just as he'd been bade to by those hands. Neck craned higher, lips parted and vulgarly flush, granting a glimpse of sharp teeth.

His eyes are hooded. He pants more than he breathes, leaving the tip of his tongue visible and gleaming with slickness against his lower fangs. Is this what you like, pup? Is this how you pictured him surrendering? Obedient and supple and hotter than the kindled campfire somewhere off behind him.

Another clasp slips free, shoulders and chest and upper arms fully exposed. He's halfway through shedding it with odalisque theatricism when he lets out a deliberate exhale:]

Ah, but it's grown on me these last few days, you know. Being out here with all the....dirt. And the mud. And molding, decrepit temples. It's all very peaceful. Very serene. And besides, the feathers look good on me.

[And, in such a distinctly affected accent:]

Maybe I want to be Dalish.

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wildcard. private crystal.

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blows dust off this, chokes on dust, coughs for a bit

the elves D.A.R.E warned you about;

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